Toni Erdmann (****1/2)

'Toni Erdmann' is a wild farce of a movie that twists and turns for nearly 3 hours down roads you wouldn't expect. It's a straight-up comedy except for the fact that it's also a very moving and sad portrait of a relationship between father and daughter. In retrospect I can't think of many moments that seem funny on paper. I think it's just the fact that a wig and fake teeth just trigger an instinctual chuckle.

This is a German production by Maren Ade (the director and writer) who drew inspiration from her own relationship with her father in this story. With such an original voice it's clear to see real-life ties. We all must know that relative or friend who will stop at nothing to put a smile on the face of others - a sort of selfless act that reveals more about a person that you might believe. That is Winfried (Peter Simonischek) who lives alone with his dying dog, detached from his ex-wife and estranged from his daughter Ines (Sandra Hüller) who spends her time working in big oil in Bucharest. We meet Winifried at the beginning of the film trying to fool a delivery man by donning fake teeth and pretending to be making a pipe bomb. Later, we see him visit his elderly mother with face paint like a skeleton. He's a clown that works to only get a laugh. Outwardly, you wouldn't think his life was that spectacular.

After seeing his daughter during her Birthday, Winifried begins to see that Ines is not as happy or successful as she is leading on. She takes long phone calls and thinly masks a sense of terror that nobody can recognize besides her father. On a whim, he decides to travel to Bucharest to spend some time with her. She puts him on the pull-out couch and is generally dismissive of his presence, instead working to impress her CEO and try her hardest to impress the corporate heads who might finally give her the promotion she wants.

The relationship between these two characters is endlessly interesting and carefully strategized. At a cocktail party, Winifried brings his fake teeth (always tucked in his breast pocket - just in case) and Ines rolls her eyes. When she fails to charm the CEO, she is mortified to see her own father becoming chummy with him over small talk and vulgarities. She is weakened by the fact that even though she is more successful, her father will always have the upper hand. She never says this, but it's clear through her actions.

After a few days, Winifried leaves to head home and leave his daughter be, and yet no sooner is she back at work than a mysterious figure appears: a tall man with an obviously fake wig and dentures named Toni Erdmann. The rouse is so clearly fake and yet Ines makes the choice to accept her father as this clown - a life coach with a knack for wearing the same velvet suit over and over. To her coworkers and friends who don't know Winifried, they see Mr. Erdmann as a real man who is larger than life. Ines, reluctant at first, ever so slowly comes to see her father in a new light.

I don't think that's really an accurate description of the plot if only because the movie feels much more spontaneous. The staging of scenes and the way dialogue progresses helps greatly in setting the tone for this indescribable movie. There is a scene in which Ines and her supervisor are on a rooftop garden discussing plans for a business venture, and in the out-of-focus background we suddenly see a man taking a phone call and fiddling with a whoopie cushion. If you don't pay attention you won't see it. Another wild moment sees Ines throwing a small Birthday party at her house and finally letting it all go... Quite literally.

The run time in itself is the main talking point for this movie: a 3-hour German comedy. Who knew? What I came to see after is that this time is so focused on developing the relationship of these two people that any shorter running time might have had a lessened impact. By the time the final scene rolls around and Ines jokingly puts her father's teeth in, it's a reward of patience and a complete fulfillment of the arc of such a crazy story. In retrospect that last scene in particular has so much more weight when we see the roles change and Ines slowly step into the role of sympathizer to care for her father. It's easy to miss, but in a movie where a man uses a cheese grater as a source of euphoria, such a quiet conclusion really speaks wonders.

Split (***)

It shouldn't come as a surprise that M Night Shyamalan continues to make films. Regardless of critical opinion, he somehow manages to build an impressive box office draw no matter how unimpressive his films turn out to be. In 1999 when he debuted with 'The Sixth Sense' there were people who said he would be the next Steven Spielberg. Looking back at that idea, there have got to be some pretty significant people rolling over in their graves to think that such a comparison was ever made. Regardless of my thoughts, and regardless of past works, it must be said that 'Split,' as silly as it is, still works on many levels as an intriguing thriller.

The movie begins with the kidnap of 3 girls (Haley Lu Richardson, Jessica Sula, and Anya Taylor-Joy) from a parking lot in broad daylight. When they wake up in a windowless room, they soon begin to see the danger of their situation. Not only are they being held by a man (James McAvoy) with vague intentions, but he displays one of many personalities; some helpful and some dangerous. The chances of escape are slim.

Right away, we have a flawed concept. We identify the hero of the story, the shy girl named Casey (Anya Taylor-Joy, who also appeared in 'The Witch' earlier in the year). Through endless flashbacks we see her tortured childhood, scene after scene of a small girl and her deranged uncle. Shyamalan attempts to draw sympathy with Casey and leaves the other two girls as little more than props with no clear character or motivation. Why have 3 girls at all? Kevin, as we learn the real kidnapper's name is, is in constant communication with his psychiatrist Dr Karen Fletcher who treats his split-personality disorder as though she is diagnosing a witch in the 16th Century.

There's a novelty that comes with the film and Kevin's personalities, and it's with a surprising amount of conviction that McAvoy pulls off a difficult task: making us believe him regardless of the silly script and silly words they speak. We learn he has 23 personalities (ranging from a sort of kinky nun named Patricia to a small boy named Hedwig) that come in and out and communicate to the kidnapped girls through locked door. Hedwig is a fan of Kanye West and is curious about kissing girls. Another personality named Dennis has obsessive-compulsive disorder and keeps a close eye on the cleanliness of the bathroom.

Yes it's Shyamalan so there is a twist of sorts. Whether or not you buy the ending is up to you. It comes in the final moments of the movie as patrons of a diner watch the news and react to the idea of a man living with multiple personalities. In the theater I saw it, most people didn't understand what happened. I don't blame them. The twist requires an audience's prior knowledge and history of the director's films. It's a preposterous setup and makes little sense in the context of the film, and yet die-hard fans will say they are now excited to see what M Night Shyamalan does next. That's a twist in itself.

I can only praise the film for McAvoy's performance, which is unbelievably clever and worked out. The movie overall is a rough cut of something that could have been much more effective, perhaps with a different director or a tighter screenplay. When we see McAvoy on screen, it's almost makes up for all the other issues. When he's absent, the story falls apart. If that's not great acting I don't know what is.

Patriot's Day (***1/2)

To make a movie about a terrorist attack that happened no more than 3 years ago is questionable in many regards. When studios made 'United 93' five years after September 11th, I seem to recall the uproar of disbelief; statements of "it's too soon" and "this is disrespectful to the victims." With the Boston Bombing, I'm not sure it's too soon, but there are questionable aspects about the movie itself that might raise a few eyebrows.

Director Peter Berg has found himself a curiously specific niche by telling real life tragedies with Mark Wahlberg as his hero. He did it with 'Lone Survivor' and in 2016 with 'Deepwater Horizon.' Whether or not I believe Mark Wahlberg as an everyman (I don't), there is clearly something that the actor does that Berg believes in. In the first two instances, they were real-life characters. Here, I was surprised to learn, is a police officer written solely as a fictional resource to progress the plot. Why we even need a hero is another story, since the film is told as an ensemble, flashing back and forth between 5 or 6 stories. We meet a local police chief who does little in the story until the end when we find out he was the one that actually shot one of the terrorists. We meet a security guard who has a crush on a college student but then later realize his ties to the bombing.

It's a faithful retelling of the incidents, beginning the morning of the marathon and concluding when the final suspect was found hiding in a small sailboat in a stranger's backyard. The interweaving of stories is probably necessary to cover an adequate amount of facts, and yet I still found myself wondering why they needed to fictionalize a police officer (Walhberg) when the city was littered with real people who acted as heroes in these horrific conditions. We meed Ed Davis (John Goodman), the Commissioner who worked to release the photos of the attackers to the public swiftly, and we meet the Federal Officer in charge of the case, Richard DesLauriers (Kevin Bacon) who wants to break the case but doesn't realize the passion of the citizens of Boston who also want to lend assistance. It was great police work that went into the capture of the Tsarnaev brothers, and yet the film would have us believe that Mark Wahlberg single-handedly worked out all the riddles and clues.

I've felt this many times before, but in a lot of ways a documentary might have been better suited to serve the material at hand. Why we need to fictionalize something so fresh in the public's mind is a debate that has been going on for years. It's not surprising that it only took 3 years for the film to come out (and would you believe it that there is a second Boston Bombing movie coming out this year starring Jake Gyllenhaal?). The extraordinary thing about the attack was the way the city rallied together to help, and in fact the most emotional parts of the film come at it's conclusion when we see the real people via real footage talking about the way their lives were forever changed. Hollywood can certainly work magic, but there's sometimes nothing more powerful than the truth.

20th Century Women (***)

With a title like "20th Century Women," it's unfortunate that the title takes away so much from the male characters, arguably an equally as important aspect of this tiny movie's impressive ensemble. Set in the summer of 1979 when times were changing without anyone noticing, it was a shift of culture that in retrospect took everyone by surprise. Mike Mills (the director who's other semi-autobiographical story was 2010's "Beginners, a movie about an elderly man coming to terms with his sexuality) clearly has a lot to say in this movie which he both wrote and directed. It's just too much crammed into too simple a movie.

Until I heard that this was based on the director's life I would have assumed this was a knock-off of "Almost Famous," perhaps the greatest coming-of-age movie ever made. Both movies follow in similar tread, defining a culture that is based on drugs and hard rock. The hero of the story is Jamie (Lucas Jade Zumann), a 15 year old boy who's mother is Dorothea (Annette Bening), a staunch totalitarian that has a more sympathetic ear for her child's needs. They live in a house in southern California that is large enough to rent out tenants. Abbie (Greta Gerwig) is a photographer with flaming red hair and a knack for photography. She is a damaged soul. Also living there is William (Billy Crudup) who is both a handyman and father-figure for Jamie.

As he enters his teenage years, Dorothea begins to see changes in her son that would have been filled with a father present (his absence is not touched on in the film). She recruits both Abbie and Jamie's friend, Julie (Elle Fanning) to try and guide him towards adulthood in her stead. This is one of the stranger aspects in the movie: that we see Dorothea and Jamie have a healthy relationship and yet suddenly she feels unmatched and lost in raising him. The tone shifts from nurturing mother and friend to stranger almost scene to scene, and I was left wondering what happened.

Through Abbie, Jamie learns about the feminism movement and a bit more about her checkered past (an ovarian cancer survivor with little chance of ever having her own kids). Amidst the Oscar buzz for Bening, I found that Greta Gerwig was the real star of the movie, dancing a tightrope between comedy and tragedy with ease. With Julie, he sees a girl that sparks his interest and yet she brags about the other boys she has been with. The movie goes on and on sparking scene after scene in which voiceover tells us more about the characters than the words ever do. This is a gimmick of the director that he also overused in 'Beginners.' The narration helps create a more present image of the characters we see, but the film becomes more and more existential and loses a lot of the charm found in the quieter moments.

The film also takes many sidetracks and turns that amount to nothing. An affair between Abbie and William is a prominent feature in the beginning and yet these characters never acknowledge each other again (even though they live together). Jamie's relationship with his childhood friends is glimpsed in a few moments, and yet the film would have us believe that he does nothing but sleep and hang out with 30 year olds found around his home. There's a lot of ground covered in the film's astonishing 2-hour run time, and in the end it was simply too much for one movie to process thoroughly.

There's one moment in the film where Dorothea confesses that she will never know her son the way he really is. After going out with Abbie and hearing about the good times they had, Dorothea says "You get to see him out in the world as a person. I never will." Abbie (the photographer) pulls out a blurry Polaroid of Jamie smiling, dancing at a party in a blissful moment. Dorothea regards the photo and smiles. Out of all the moments in '20th Century Women' (both good and bad), this was the one that sticks in my mind. It's great writing and one of the more perfect comments on a child's relationship with their parents. Too bad the rest of the film wasn't as insightful.

Silence (****)

There's a reasonable argument to say that SILENCE is one of Martin Scorsese's better movies. The talk is that it was a passion project of his for decades, finally being released in all it's artistic endeavors and mysteries. I suppose someone else could argue the opposite: that this is a story full of brutality and despair without the signature style of the aged director. I think I'm falling right on the middle on this one. This is surely one of the year's most powerful stories, and yet I have to admit it left me cold.

The story follows two priests from Portugal (Andrew Garfield and Adam Driver) who venture into hostile Japanese country in search of their mentor, Father Ferreira (Liam Neeson), who has abandoned his Christian faith. Some chalk it up to mere rumors. These two young ministers take the journey to find out for themselves.

What begins as a fairly traditional story ventures into the heart of Japan in the 16th Century with a sharp attention to both detail and horror. This is less a story of a search for one man as it is an odyssey into the despair found in conflicting religious beliefs. Father Rodrigues (Andrew Garfield) holds hope that Ferreira is alive while also working to convert as many locals under cover of darkness. Upon landing on the shores of Japan (smuggled in on small fishing boats from China), he encounters villages of faithful Christians who worship in secret. For them, the arrival of Rodrigues and Father Garupe (Driver) is confirmation of their beliefs. Through language barriers, it seems that God is always present.

As we delve further into the country towards Nagasaki (where Ferreira is said to be held), the two priest break off on separate journeys. Rodrigues, though oftentimes alone, is shadowed by a Japanese recluse named Kichijiro, a drunk who once betrayed his faith in order to spare his life (he witnessed the execution of his entire family) but returns to the faith time again in order to make Confession and amends with the Lord. Rodrigues continues to absolve him, and yet this is the slow unraveling of an aspect of this story: do the Japanese really comprehend the religion in the same way Westerners do?

There are three people who make this movie better than average: Andrew Garfield surely gives one of the year's best performances as a man trapped in his own personal Hell, forced to grapple between martyrdom and eternal damnation. It's a strong year for Garfield, getting accolades and Oscar buzz for his other leading role in 'Hacksaw Ridge.' Trust me, this is the better performance. Second is the skill of Martin Scorsese, who slowly paints a portrait of a time long forgot with such attention to tone. It's a horrifying and at times morbid story to sit through, but there was never a moment I found myself any less than fully-focused and contemplative.

Third is a surprise, a breakthrough performance by a Japanese actor named Issey Ogata who gives without a doubt one of the year's most memorable performances. Throughout the film the Christians living in Japan are routinely inspected by samurai officials who intend to hunt down and capture any found citizens in violation of the law. One such official is Inoue Masashige (Ogata) who treats the job with a certain flair. Constantly waving a fan and with an ear to ear smile, this is a performance that steps above the rest of the cast by perfectly encapsulating the braggadocious nature of Japanese law without missing a beat. It's a winking devil performance that I hope the Oscars won't look over.

'Silence' is at times hard to palpate and yet rewards the audience for it's patience. Whether or not this film can be interpreted as being pro or anti-Catholic is maybe not the ultimate message of this film. While the final act delves into a horrifyingly-dark arena, consider the final shot before the credits begin to role (I won't spoil it). In such a brutal era with antiquated customs, isn't there still hope left to be found?

Passengers (**1/2)

The premise for PASSENGERS is a smart one, so are the actors. What if you awoke on a 120-year mission on a voyage to a new planet only 30 years in? With no chance to go back to sleep, you are a castaway amongst a sea of people who you will never meet. This turned out to be a movie of 'what-ifs,' with an ending that was so silly and left me moaning out of annoyance. So much could have been explored had the writers used half their brain.

This is Morten Tyldum's first directorial work since "The Imitation Game" which was a fine movie about code-breakers in WWII. Here is a movie that is more simple. Jim (Chris Pratt) is the unfortunate man who awakes far ahead of his colleagues. At first, he doesn't know what is happening. He comes out of cryo-sleep and follows the normal protocol and settles into his room aboard the spaceship. Were he to have awoke at the proper time, they would have had 4 months of life on board to adjust before heading to their new planet (an earth-like home that provides an escape from those wishing to leave their homes behind). Jim quickly sees the problem, alone on a ship with no one to talk to (besides a chatty robotic bartender who was clearly written to serve as a lazy plot device. Notice how none of the other robotic aids on board look remotely human). He explores the empty space and spends a year in isolation before even making contact with anyone.

Here is where the trailer led us astray. I would argue that the trailer set up an entirely different movie, because the occurrences that lead Jim to meet Aurora (Jennifer Lawrence, what a coincidental name for an actual sleeping beauty) are morally gray and make our hero an altogether bad man. I don't want to spoil it, but the film is so silly that it seems like a waste if I don't. Jim falls in love with Aurora after walking by her in cryo-sleep. He reads about her, listens to her recordings. Faced with a future alone, he makes the choice to wake her up and essentially commit murder by denying her the chance to wake up with the others 100 years from now. No matter his actions, this is a corrupt action that (love story or not) turns Jim from lovable to villainous.

Of course they fall in love, and as luck would have it another crew member is woken up (Lawrence Fishburne) who helps them realize that there is a fatal error on board that could lead to the destruction of the ship. Like the bartender (played by Michael Sheen mind you), here is another character that was lazily included and dumbs down the plot by turning the story into a cliched action flick. Yes, Aurora discovers that Jim woke her up, but in the end they still manage to say their "I love you's" before heroically saving the 5,000 sleeping passengers on board and living out the rest of their lives in a Stockholm-syndrome lover extravaganza.

The movie could have been interesting if it stuck with one character learning to live by himself. It also could have been interesting to see what would happen if Jim and Aurora managed to fall back to sleep and meet again 100 years from now. Would they still fall in love? I liked the idea but didn't care for the actual story. Lawrence and Pratt are fine actors, but even their chemistry can't save this sinking ship. One trailer declared that this was "Titanic in the stars." That's quite a statement. Maybe they were referring to the actual wreck and not the plot.

Lion (*****)

The holiday movie season continues to dazzle with LION, one of the most emotionally rendering movies I can remember. A story based on a real event that follows a lost boy reuniting with his mother, this is a film that exists purely on merit and a powerful combination of imagery and sound. It’s like a Hollywood movie that’s so unbelievable you can’t believe could happen. It’s magic.

There are two distinct parts to the film, a front-half that follows our hero through the slums of western India. There is very little dialogue and the language we do hear is local dialect. Saroo (Dev Patel playing as the adult and the wonderful Sunny Pawar playing the child) lives in a small shack with his mother, brother, and younger sister. They work as laborers, lifting rocks and earning little to survive. At night Saroo volunteers to help his brother Guddu in earning more money. With little sleep and a crowded train station to navigate, Saroo is soon lost. The boy is stuck on a train for days, trapped with no idea where he is going or where his brother is. Once he manages to escape, he wanders the streets of Calcutta calling for his mom in a language that locals can’t even comprehend. His story moves slowly, tragically, and we follow this small child disappear amongst a mass of crowds and commuters.

It’s a wonder he manages to escape, but fortune would find Saroo in an orphanage in the heart of the city. His story makes the local news, but with the memory of an 8 year old and little recollection of his town’s name (he doesn’t even know his mother’s real name), he is doomed to exist as a lost boy nearly 1,000 miles separated from his home. Fortune would find him adopted by two Australians (David Wenham and Nicole Kidman) who fly Saroo to Tasmania and raise him with love. They adopt another boy from the same orphanage a year later, and immediately we see the mental disturbances that could be inflicted on these innocent children. How Saroo managed to grow up so normal is a wonder in itself.

The last half of the movie follows adult Saroo (Dev Patel in a showy role that is at times a bit too flat but never fails to impress) as he slowly realizes these memories of his childhood. He meets a girl (Rooney Mara) while attending college who encourages him to try and trace down his mother using Google Earth and the few visual cues he recalls. Simple math puts his search area within 1,500 kilometers of Calcutta. Painstakingly, he searches the grainly online images of train station after train station.

Here is where the movie develops into a more complex story, where Sue (Nicole Kidman in a heartbreaking role) admits her wishes to adopt, and how she has no regrets about never having children of her own. There is a scene spoken almost entirely in whispers where Sue tells Saroo all that she believes and hopes for her son. Saroo, in turn, finds new insight into this woman and the beautiful sacrifices his parents made for him. Saroo keeps his search hidden from his parents, fearful of what they may think and worried that it will all amount to nothing. As unbelievable a story as this is, we can identify with these worries and what it means to have guardians in our lives.

I will admit that this movie packs a punch, and the last 45 minutes are filled with incredibly-written scenes one after the other. Saroo on the verge of giving up hope stumbles onto a familiar sight: a water tower near the train station he first disappeared. We know it's the same tower too, with winding stairs and a distinctive roof. He can retrace his steps down the rails, through the trees, and back to his village... Zooming in on a pixelated brown spot, at last he has found it: his home. This scene alone is so powerful with only the fuzzy Google images, a tight closeup on Patel's eyes, and the music. The film score by Volker Bertelmann and Dustin O’Halloran deserves much praise through melancholy sounds created on the piano, unique themes and a perfect marriage to the story at hand.

It shouldn’t be a spoiler to learn that Saroo an his mother reunite in one of the most beautiful scenes one can imagine, an embrace that is earned so fully that I doubt there was a single dry-eye in the packed theater I saw it. Stuck with no tissue I was caught with tears streaming down my face in a scene of pure electricity. I tremble with the memories of this moment, amazed by the story and more so by the accomplishments of these filmmakers to achieve something so wonderful and heartwarming. I wept at the end titles, which revealed  more facts about this story including insight from Saroo’s birth mother who never moved from her town and never gave up hope of finding her son. We learn the meaning of the film’s title “Lion,” which had me puzzled until the screen went black and then gave the film an entirely new meaning.

On merits alone this movie is a masterpiece. There isn’t a dense plot with side stories and miscellaneous characters. This is a story of one boy who never gave up his search to find his mother. In a country of over 1 billion people, the odds were insurmountable. For this story to be told with so much craft should instantly put this on the top of your must-see movie list.